Front National thwarted in bid for historic victory in French regional elections

Far-Right party has failed to win a single region, after voters flocked to
traditional parties to keep it out following first round victories

By Henry Samuel, Paris

7:40AM GMT 14 Dec 2015

The far-Right Front National was thwarted in its bid to clinch a historical electoral victory in France on Sunday after failing to secure power in any of the country’s 13 regions.

The ruling Socialists of President François Hollande appeared to have fared better than expected, taking five regions, while the opposition centre-Right took seven, including the Paris region for the first time since 1997.

But in a major upset, Marine Le Pen, the FN leader, failed to take power in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, losing heavily to Xavier Bertrand, the candidate of Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-Right party The Republicans (formerly the UMP).

French far-right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen (2nd-R) leaves after delivering a speech following the announcement of results in the second round of French regional elections in Henin-Beaumont Photo: AFP

She had hoped to use a regional win as a “foundation stone” for a run at the presidency in 2017, where she is polled to reach round two. In the event, Mr Bertrand won almost 58 per cent to Ms Le Pen’s 42 per cent.

“History will remember that it was here in that we stopped the advance of the Front National,” said Mr Bertrand, a former labour minister, who had laid into “the English” in the tail end of his campaign, blaming David Cameron for the migrant crisis in Calais.

French National Front political party leader and candidate Marine Le Pen delivers a speech Photo: REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

The same fate befell Marion-Maréchal Le Pen, Marine’s niece, who failed in her battle for the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, losing out to Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, by 45 per cent to his 55 per cent.

The FN had high hopes of clinching at least three regions after the first round vote coming top in six and taking the largest slice of the national ballot – some six million votes.

But it fell foul of higher than expected turnout – more than 50 per cent - and tactical voting by Socialist sympathisers who plumped en masse for the mainstream Right to keep out the FN.

French National Front political party leader and candidate Marine Le Pen leaves after her speech Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman

Ms Le Pen placed a positive spin on her defeat, saying the FN had maintained political momentum by winning a historically high number of votes, and was now “the first opposition force in many regional councils of France” – tripling its number of councillors.

She added that the result would not stop the "inexorable rise, election after election, of a national movement" behind her party.

Socialist Party (PS) first secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadelis delivers a speech after the announcement of the results of the second round of the French regional elections in Paris Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty

But analysts suggested the outcome suggested that the “glass ceiling” preventing the FN winning in major elections when the mainstream Right and Left cooperate still holds – even if the cracks in that strategy are increasingly wide.

The outcome was relatively disappointing for Mr Sarkozy, whose party only won four regions without the support of Left-wing voters. A landslide victory would have boosted his chances in upcoming party primaries.

Critics said his hard-Right line failed to woo FN supporters, a sizeable chunk of whom had voted for him in 2012.

Marine Le Pen (C), French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for the National Front in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, is surrounded by journalists as she leaves after results in the second-round regional elections in Henin-Beaumont, France Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman

But Mr Sarkozy reportedly told aides: “My strategy was the right one. The results have shown that France has never been so Right-wing. And when I see that it is in regions where we fielded centrist candidates that we fared the worse, you’d have to be mad to think centrism is the way forward.”

The results will come as a major relief to the Socialists, who had controlled all but one of France’s regions before the elections and had expected a pendulum swing to the opposition.

President Hollande clearly hopes his party’s decision to pull out of two regions where the FN stood a chance of winning will give it the moral high ground ahead of 2017 presidential elections and bolster its claim to being the “only rampart against the far-Right”.

Manuel Valls, the prime minister, who had warned of future “civil war” should the FN take power, said: “Tonight there is no relief, no triumphalism. The extreme-Right threat has not been averted. I have not forgotten the first round results.”